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On March 14, 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt issued an executive order setting aside Pelican Island, Florida, as the very first national wildlife refuge. Today, it remains an essential breeding ground for migratory waterfowl—and one of 561 wildlife refuges overseen by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Daniel M. Ashe, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, recently discussed what Pelican Island is like today.

The “Name Your Ancestor” contest resulted in more than 1,000 name suggestions for the hypothetical common placental ancestor that scientists described last month. The top 32 contestants, as selected by the Museum and WNYC’s Radiolab, range from serious to silly. Starting today, we need your help to pick the winning moniker for this small, furry, insect-eating mammal.

Astronomers have conducted a remote reconnaissance of a distant solar system with a new telescope imaging system that sifts through the blinding light of stars. Using a suite of high-tech instrumentation and software called Project 1640, the scientists collected the first chemical fingerprints, or spectra, of this system’s four red exoplanets, which orbit a star 128 light years away from Earth.